Nature and Man in Stienbeck's

            Nature and human life share a symbiotic relationship in John Steinbeck's novel. The relationship between earth and man is symbolic in his work and in this novel it is the key theme. Setting , prevalent throughout, shares a bond, an embodiment, and a likeness with the characters to show the reader just how vital it is to survival. Most of us know where we are going to sleep tonight, we have our comforts and we feel security, for the Joads and other migrants this was a lost goal. When life turned upside down people had to go back to the land and just simply try to endure.
             Life on a farm, working the fields, tilling the soil and tending the animals is tough work. What is even tougher is then the land and the people are forced to give up. The land as a life force can't hold it's self up through the drought; this leads to the farm drying up and having no yield. With out their harvests the farmers have no way of supporting them selves. The depression and the dust bowl hit the men of this era hard, from the beginning they had always been the financial support. Now they have been demasculinzized for the reason that the providers can no longer provide. The people depend on the land for life and when the earth has been overworked with countless crops and insufficient water it is inevitable that man will feel the repercussions, since he too is overworked. When the land is dry, so is their amount of hope, when the drought came so to came despair and freight. With all natural disasters there are always serious times to overcome. Take Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989 for example. It took along time to stabilize Santa Cruz and the surrounding area. Today we are still rebuilding areas. So transforming the Joad's life proved to be an enduring task. Life is so reliant on the land that we have come so close to becoming it.
             Steinbeck uses description of the land to mirror the people. Nature can be seen as a representative of the people, at some times even a character.